good morning and welcome to "this week." the perfect storm. >> you deserve better. i apologize. >> outrage over obama care. >> the only spy. for valid foreign intelligence. >> a spying circus. the president's lowest poll numbers yet. is obama's second term slipping away? has he lost control? what will it take to get it back? this morning the only show where the white house responds. tough questions for the president's top strategist. plus, republican senator rand paul in a "this week" exclusive. and the analyst who nailed it in 2012, reads this year's tea leaves. nate silver makes his "this week" debut on our powerhouse roundtable. and rob lowe. this sunday morning.

hello again. one year ago this week, president obama was coasting toward re-election, now he's coming off one of the toughest weeks of his second term. let's start out with our chief white house correspondent jon karl. with more on that. you have the obama care, nsa spying controversial and now this new book "double down" shows that winning campaigns aren't pretty on the inside. >> that's right, george. apparently some of the president's top aides leaked so much information to authors of this book. in the president's weekly address, no mention of obama care or veep switches. >> i want to cut through that noise and talk plainly about what we should do right now to keep growing this economy. and creating new jobs. >> reporter: just an effort to turn the page in one of his toughest weeks in his second term. who would have thought this joke on saturday night live. >> millions of americans are

visiting healthcare.gov which is great news. unfortunately the site was only designed to handle six users at a time. >> reporter: would turn into an actual prediction. on friday, they revealed that only six americans were able to sign up on obama care flawed website on the first day. some unable to keep its health care plan. as the president promised over and over again. >> i said this once or twice but it bears repeating if you like your health care -- if you like if you like your plan, you keep your plan. you can keep your plan. period. >> reporter: it suddenly changed. most, if not all, could keep their health care plan. then there are the new bombshells in the book "double down." including campaign staffers offering an intervention after obama's disastrous first debate. the president telling them, "i just don't know if i can do this." his supposed take on bill clinton.

"i like him, in doses." the splashiest claim, the obama campaign secretly did research on the possibility of replacing vice president biden with hillary clinton. >> did vice president biden know that the campaign was conducting polling and focus groups on the possibility of replacing him? >> jon, i don't know the details of that. it was something that the president would never have accepted. >> and all of this is weighing heavily on the president's poll numbers, which, george, this week, are approaching levels almost as low in the aftermath of katrina for president george bush. let's begin with this book and try to clear things up, the bottom line on this potential switch between joe biden and hillary clinton, research was done, correct? >> correct. >> but what happened next? >> this was never seriously considered. never taken by the president. the president never considered this seriously.

>> why was the research done? >> research is done on a lot of things. bill daley chief of staff at the time, said that it was taken into account. >> no matter what the research said? >> whatever the research said. >> cover of new york magazine has that line from president obama i just don't know if i can do this, it goes inside the debate prep in the second debate. you saw in jon karl's piece, you saw those comments about president clinton, and first of all, did this happen the way it's portrayed in the book, was the president this rattled after the first debate? >> well, look, i haven't read the book. he bounced back in the second debate. it took work to get there. it took work from the president and his team. so, i think all of that is past history. >> it includes a scene where the president had to cut back because of leaks. the president is very, very

angry about leaks. i can only imagine what he's thinking as he sees all of these details in the book? >> we're not the first white house to deal with leaks. every white house has dealt with it. i think we have been more leak-free than most and when we find them we try to stop them. >> is he angry about it? >> he's always frustrated about leaks. i haven't read it. he hasn't read it. but he hates leaks. everyone hates leaks. we should be able to work together to get the american people's work done. i think that anyone who leaks has to pay the price. i don't know who leaked in that book. >> the president also frustrated with the health care launch. the website was down overnight for maintenance. apparently it's back up right now. but given these challenges, jeff zients is now running the punch line for the site, are you still confident that the website's problems are going to be fixed by the end of november? >> yes. jeff zients said that as

recently as this week. based on the work done, they can get it back up by the end of this month. we'll be able to get -- >> you lost almost two months here? >> right. the good news here is that the history of programs like this, in massachusetts, is that most people sign up toward the end. massachusetts, in the first month, 0.3% of the overall population who ended up signing up, in the first month. >> the clock is ticking. >> no question. >> we saw that report. only six people signed up on the first day. you set out this goal that 7 million people will sign up by that first big deadline of march 31st, are you still committed to that goal? >> that goal was set by cbo. our goal is to get as many people signed up as possible. the first enrollment numbers released later this month, aren't going to be where we want it to be. there's no question about that. we take responsibility for the errors, and we take responsibility for fixing it. if we get the website working as

expected by the end of this month, i think we'll be in a good place. >> i want to share something you said a couple of days before the launch on cnn. >> people will be able to go to these marketplaces online. compares plans. people will see there's going to be a consumer experience unmatched by anything in the government, also in the private sector. >> clearly didn't turn out that way. a couple of big questions here. people are still struggling, how is it possible, we have seen these reports, the president was asked about this website every single day, how is it he and you at top levels of the office, did not know. and given that, why should we believe your confidence now? >> i would say a couple of things. one, we didn't believe that was the question -- these results don't match up to the president's expectations nor the people's expectations. it was inexcusable. since then we have made serious

changes. we sent in jeff zients, a close adviser to the president, he has gone in and made management changes. he's brought in a team that's looking at this. so, he has confidence and we have confidence to get this done. >> one thing that's also clear is that the president's signature promise on health care, that's not literally true, it's not true and the president is taking a lot of heat for that. "the wall street journal" reported that there was a lot of debate behind the scenes whether or not the president should make that promise. you see the headline from yesterday's wall street journal. one senior administration official said that as the law was being crafted by the white house and lawmakers some white house policy advisers objected to the breadth of mr. obama's keep your plan promise. they were overruled. is that true? >> that's not my recollection.

let's talk about that promise for a second. why would he put a provision in the law, if you have a plan in place before obama care passes, you can keep your plan, but if your plan has been downgraded or canceled, you can't. >> the problem -- >> but george, if he done that, he would have been violating more records. it's important to understand who we're talking about and the kind of plans we're talking about. it's 5% of the market. 80% of the people have health care through medicare. their employers or medicaid. 15% don't have health insurance, now have access to it for the first time. and 5%, if you had your plan and it hasn't changed or canceled, you can keep it. most of them will get a better plan for less -- for the same or less. in many of these plans, these were cut-rate plans that didn't cover hospitalization.

>> but let's assume it's true. it still doesn't meet the literal promise the president made right there. and your policymakers knew that then. why didn't the president say during the campaign what he said this week, for a vast majority of people you can keep it. >> i can't go back on time with this. i don't recall this debate the wall street journal mentions. here's the point, if you had a plan before the affordable care act that hasn't been changed or canceled, you can keep it. i understand there's controversy and confusion. >> jon karl also talked about, in his piece, about how his poll numbers have taken a hit. his approval rating is only 42%. lowest i believe of the second term. matched by a series of headlines about how the president seems to evading responsibility on major issues. "new york times" -- where the buck stops, some see a bystander. how is the president going to fix this problem?

>> well, two things. one, our concern right now are not poll numbers or political standing it is getting this website working so million of americans have access to affordable care. >> you don't think there's any questions that the president has to address about the white house's confidence or credibility? >> look, the website failures are absolutely inexcusable, we own that. that's on him. we owe it to the american people to fix it. to this notion of a bystander that is an absurd character with everything i have seen working with this president. >> although the president was not aware of the tapping of the cell phone of angela merkel, this nsa controversy continues to spread. in the wakeover it, edward snowden has had a meeting with a german legislator the, present that person with a letter, speaking the truth is not a crime, i am confident that with the support of the international community the

government of united states will abandon this harmful practice. he's seeking some kind of clemency. are there any conditions under which president obama would consider clemency? >> none that have been discussed. >> none at all? >> none. >> it's not on the table? >> it's not been on the table. mr. snowden violated u.s. law. our belief has always been that he should return to the united states and face justice. >> finally, rand paul is our next guest, senator rand paul, do you agree with jay carney your white house colleague, that it would be awesome if rand paul ran for president in 2016? >> i suspect that the the 2016 republican nomination is going to be awesome no matter who runs. >> okay, dan pfeiffer, thanks very much. let's go to senator rand paul right there. you heard dan pfeiffer say it's going to be an awesome race. are you going to be a part of it? >> we actually are working with the white house and the last time i was with the president i told them there are some things

that we can agree on, one, let's let companies bring money back home. we could double the amount of money in infrastructure if we did that and that's something that we could find an agreement on. >> here we go. that's one point that rand paul and the white house could be agreeing on. let's talk about the nsa. we heard dan pfeiffer weigh in on that. he said that clemency for edward snowden isn't under consideration at all, should it be? >> i don't know the facts. i don't know whether any information has been distributed to foreign powers. i'm concerned that the national defense director lied to congress and i haven't heard anyone talk about repercussions. we're not only spying on foreign leaders, but there are accusations that we spied on the pope as well. there are problems. we lost a lot of credibility.

the only way to start fresh is someone new in charge of intelligence. >> there's also a suggestion from one of the former chiefs, in today's "new york times," in an extensive review of the entire nsa program, he said that the nsa should get out ahead of this and put out everything they knew snowden to have. do think that's a good idea? >> maybe. the fundamental question of whether or not this constitution or not, shouldn't be a secret court, it needs to get into the supreme court, with senator widen and myself, we introduced a bill that would allow cases like this to be challenged in open court, at the supreme court. we should determine once and for all, whether a single warrant could apply to all americans. >> you have taken some heat from inside your party for your views on privacy and fourth amendment and the national security

administration. people like you are trying to exult mr. snowden. nth reports that one of your potential rivals, ted cruz, said could be disqualified for a run. this was in "new york times" yesterday -- how do you respond to that? >> you know what i would say, it's actually an advantage for me to talk about the right to privacy because, you know, you look at the president's numbers dropping, with the young people, they dropped 20 points in the last two months. i think the reason is, because he's not protecting their privacy. young people don't care so much about taxes and regulation. but they all have a cell phone and they're on the internet and they care about their privacy. so do i. i would correct these policies if i were ever the one to make

the decisions. i think that would attract new people to the party, not less. >> what do you think of senator cruz? he seems to be catching on. more republicans see him as the leader than you in the party. particularly catching on in iowa, do you think he's your chief rival? if you choose to run. >> i think we're a long way away from that. i haven't even convinced my wife yet whether or not i should do this. no, ted and i are friends. he's a limited government conservative. we don't always agree on everything, but we agree on a lot of things. >> you heard dan pfeiffer there say, he's confident that the website problems will be fixed by the end of november and one of the success stories it appears so far is that -- in your own state, the kentucky website seems to be doing pretty well, 26,000 have signed up for the exchange. what do you make of the fact that so many are signing up in your state? and can this program be a

success? >> well, nearly 90% of them are signing up for medicaid, free health insurance from the government. my concern is not that we shouldn't help people -- i do want to help people get insurance. there's going to be a cost and in my state, we have a lot of rural hospitals that teeter in the balance. my fear is, these hospitals may be bankrupt by overwhelming them with medicaid patients. same with doctors. they may leave if overwhelmed. so, i see the positive and i also see the negative and the real problem is, we're driving everyone out of the individual market, and there's going to be four plans, where there was once hundreds of plans that you could choose from, there are now four government-mandated plans. i had people all across kentucky come up to me last week and say, i had great insurance, but mine is better than the president thinks i should have. i have to step down to a less good plan. >> you're saying even the

website problems are fixed you're not confident that obama care is going to work? >> you know, i think government is inherently inept because they don't work on a profit motive. government has to do certain things. there's a certain safety net. there's national defense, there's roads, there's judiciary, congress. i would say that there are fundamental things that government can do, but government shouldn't take on new opportunities or new things to do when it's not managing what it has now. for example, medicaid is trillions of dollars short currently, when we add a new entitlement program on another one that's struggling i don't think it's a good idea. >> you faced criticism on whether you're committing plagiarism, including jorge ramos of fusion. >> they accused you of stealing a line from wikipedia. so, is this true? >> we borrowed the plot lines

the movie. i gave credit to the people who wrote the movie. there are technicalities to this. nothing i said was not given at attribution to where it came from. >> since then, politico reported that there were more incidents. do you concede that this is pretty sloppy and tighten up your speech writing operation if you want to have a presidential run? >> the footnote police have been dogging me in the past week. i have given thousands of speeches and i don't think i have footnoted any of those speeches. in the speech in question, i quoted from 1984, my left foot, einstein, ray bradbury, among a dozen others, i attributed everything to them. i didn't get into secondary sources.

saying, i quoted einstein as according to wikipedia. i have written scientific papers i know how to footnote things. we have never footnoted speeches. if that's the standard i'm going to held to, yes, we'll change and we'll footnote things. everything in that paper, if i presented it for an academic publication, would have had footnotes next to it. yeah, there are times when it's been sloppy or not correct and we made an error, but the difference is, i take it as an insult. i won't lie down and people can call me misleading. or misrepresenting. i have never intentionally done so. like i say, if dueling were legal in kentucky f they keep it up, it would be a duel change. >> so, what's the fix? >> we'll have to footnote things. like i said.

here's the problem, george, 98% of my speeches are extrapraneous. it's hard to footnote things accurately. i'll give you an example i love the quote from niles ferguson referring to the president saying, the deficit is declining and now ferguson says, yeah, from superenormous, to really, really gigantic. i love the quote. but, is that enough? do i have to say, as i heard or as i read on an ap story. about ferguson. or as i heard when he was on with george stephanopoulos. i mean there's sort of a certain degree when we're going to say, is that nitpicking? is referring to the person enough or do i have to refer to the original source? in an academic paper, even if you paraphrase something, don't even use the same words, has to be sourced. when i wrote scientific papers, i sometimes had statements with eight footnotes for a sentence. if it's required i'll do it.

but i think i'm being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters. >> okay, that's an extensive answer. thank you, rand paul. up next -- it's the roundtable turn. matthew dowd, van jones, jon than karl and peggy noonan. on. the president's second-term slump. and a look at this tuesday's election, what clues do they have for 2016 and midterms? exactly one year away.

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the rollout has been one disaster after the next. actually you can't get to the next disaster, you get an error message 404 error not found. >> you should take the workers from nsa so good at hacking into these phone calls and should put them to work fixing healthca healthcare.gov.

listening into angela merkel's phone call. the only world leader we don't listen to is president obama. >> obama was in so much trouble he called hillary clinton and said, can you start early? peggy nowman, abc's matthew dowd, jon karl is back and van jones from cnn's "crossfire." peggy, let's begin. this is kind of pile-on time now for the president. i want to show some magazine covers this week. "the new yorker" cover. the president trying -- with a huge cell phone trying to get health care.gov working. forbes, the most interesting one, vladimir putin comes up on top of president obama as the most powerful leader in the world. peggy, one of the things they point out is that the president has entered his lame-duck period early. >> this whole obama care thing, it appears to me, has kind of scarred -- at least the

beginning, and perhaps more than the beginning of the second administration, it is the headline, even as obama care was the headline of the first min strags. you know, bill sapphire once said, never join a pile-on. but at this point, that pile-on isn't getting smaller it's just growing. there's something to say about obama care, but from the moment the site debuted, straight to the point american people started learning how obama care was changing their lives and can selling their coverage and changing it, it has been a disaster. i have never seen a story quite like this. >> and the turnaround has been astounding. think of where we were a few weeks ago. the republicans were blamed for a government shutdown that went on and on. are the republicans doomed to, you know, extinction? poll numbers as low as we have ever seen. now, that's over. the focus is on the president. >> i pressed dan pfeiffer on this a little bit.

you're at the white house every single day, behind the scenes, how do they explain how they missed this? >> you know, they don't have a good explanation behind the scenes, either, and george, we sat through presentations before this went online, just days before it went online, top people at the white house talking about how amazing this website was going to be. and it was not just one portal to sign up for the health care plan, this was what it's all about. >> even the president's top allies are getting anxious. >> sure. first of all, there's nothing good to say about obama care. i think that's not true. if you're a woman, there's a lot of good stuff to be said about obama care because you can be overcharged. there's a lot of good stuff to be said. there's a bigger picture here, we cannot have an adult conversation in washington, d.c., about anything. you're right, we have gone from the republicans, they're

finished, to obama is finished. here's what's going on, there were winners and losers under the last system and there are winners and losers under this system. the republicans were completely indifferent apparently to those losers last time. the republicans are tone-deaf to the losers potentially this time. neither can come to the table to say, what can we do to upgrade obama care? defend it at all cost or defund it at all cost. >> the difficulty right now for the president on this and obviously there are some good things and bad things in this, but every answer the president and administration gives, they give anecdote, here's the problem, let me tell you the story of this woman got this plan, like the plural of anecdotes is proof. the plural of anecdotes is data.

bigger problem for the president and i faced this with the president what i worked with -- coming out of katrina, it wasn't all about katrina. the president's problems have been brewing for a while. what the republican circus did was cover up a lot of the president's problems. that circus that went on with the republicans for a while. then once that was over, it revealed a deeper problem with the presidency and i think what you have right now, you talked about the floor of the president's approval numbers. every time you establish a new floor, you establish a new ceiling. when you have a new ceiling that causes the president problems for the next three years. >> one thing that ties together katrina and this situation right now is that, for the first time in president obama's case, in a serious way, his confidence and the white house's confidence is being questioned. >> yes. i really agree and i think the heart of it is this, the president can talk, the administration's wonderful at talk, they never miss a talking point, a speech, they never

forget to feed the audio. but execution and getting it done, and creating the program, and making it run and making it work, has been a complete failure. so, i think there's the sense around there that, the people around the president, the people in the white house, have a magical sense that, if they say something, that thing will will itself into being. >> let me bring this to van, how do you explain the question of excuse, one thing in the washington post this morning, there were a lot of warnings ahead that the president should bring in a health care czar to run this whole thing. >> this is the part of the problem, it's silly season, literally, they have an almost obama derangment syndrome.

he's this dictator and tyrant who's destroying america. no matter what this president does, they rollout is this narrative or he's either a tyrant and dictating. what i'm disturbed about, i know that this president isn't a hands-off leader. he's famously engaged. when you work in the white house, you write something, you know one person in that building is going to read it, it's president obama. something went wrong here. he's engaged now. >> i have tell you now, jeffery zients, the new czar, went up to the hill to talk about this. what democrat senators said, can we go back and tell our constituents, promise them that this website will be up and running by november 30th. they said, absolutely.

now, we have the real test on this. they're worried about it. one democratic senator, they're also worried about the next shoe to fall, will employers stop dropping? >> i agree with van on this. the president isn't a dictator, the president has actually great intentions. the president wants to help the american public. the president wants to solve health care. much of it has been done incompetently. the president isn't a socialist. you don't turn our health care system to the major health insurance companies. it's give on the companies. the problem for the president is, though, that, on competence, is, one time is a fluke, two times is a coincidence, three times is a trend. every response to every major crisis, i didn't know what was going on. the president says, i don't know what's going on. that builds a trend that's not

good for the president. >> bottom line, guys, 3 1/2 years to execute the central promise and the central meaning of your own administration and it flops. you have to almost try to fail with 3 1/2 years. >> two things. first of all, they tried to do too much on this website, you could just have the website where you allow people to shop and they can call in and they tried to do too much and because it was a central thing they tried to do too much. it's amazing to me now seeing the republican party to become the party of ralph nader. biggest consumer protection operation now. now, six months ago, we had people who were getting the same cancellation notices and the republicans were silent. i want to make one thing clear, you look at the numbers here, 14% -- only 14% of americans were able to keep these individual market plans for two years before -- in other words, 80% of americans were being

thrown off. even a promise. listen, he will pay a price. mission accomplished? you pay a price. no new taxes? you pay a price. you keep your plan? you pay a price. but he want from 14% losers to 3% losers. let's work together to get to 100%. have to take a break right there. lot more coming for you guys in a moment. we'll be joined to nate silver, he's new to espn and abc news. he makes his "this week" debut. plus, rob lowe plays jfk in "killing kennedy." i started part-time, now i'm a manager.n. my employer matches my charitable giving. really. i get bonuses even working part-time. where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. healthcare starting under $40 a month. i got education benefits.

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the winners of the white

house turkey pardon were chosen through a highly competitive online vote. and once again, nate silver completely nailed it. the guy's amazing. >> president obama with a little shout-out there for nate silver, brand new to espn and abc news. welcome to abc. great to have you here, nate. >> of course, good morning. >> you nailed the 2012 election. we want to talk about this year's elections and how we see things playing out. we have seen two big story lines this fall the government shutdown, clobbers republicans, the beginning of the fall, president obama, democrats, getting clobbered by health care. the last several weeks. how do you see this playing out? >> these are the two maybe biggest lines that each side has.

the obama rollout plan, where how competent is big government is there overreach here? on the other hand, democrats running an anti-incumbent campaign. the republicans are so dangerous when they get power we need to disempower them. i use the jon stewart test, because more americans are watching comedic shows, when things are a punch line there and resonate with people outside the beltway, that's when the issues might resonate. >> two key numbers. i want to broaden out the conversation. number one congressional approval right now down to 12%. 85% disapprove of congress. when you look at the 2014 elections, generic ballot, democrats versus republicans, democrats have an eight-point lead. but that doesn't tell the whole story. >> yeah, there are a couple of issues with these numbers. number one, these numbers were right after the shutdown. there's been another poll, a

poll democrats retreating from their peak. among registered voters and not likely voters. there's a turnout gap that favors the gop. plus, you have to remember too, the way congressional districts are constructed, most of them are somewhat republican leaning. democrats are concentrated in big cities. although those numbers look good for democrats superficially hard for them to win back the white house. >> on that point, democrats had an advantage on the generic advantage with the 1994 and the gingrich revolution. democrats had that advantage. it wasn't quite as big as it is now. >> the great thing about nate, something that i refer, it's data-driven. a opposed to an anecdote. there's a big rally going on in richmond, virginia, the other conflicting data point is the president's approval number, because when you look at the president's approval number, president's approval number, say

you're looking at that, it's going to be bad for the democrats. if you look at the republicans' approval numbers, 2014 isn't going to be a wave election in my view. it's going to be fought out battle by battle. >> two big battles in 2013. on tuesday we see governor races in both virginia and new jersey. a little bit of surprise in virginia, terry mcauliffe, grew up in new york, seems to be heading for a victory over cuccinelli. in new jersey, chris christie seems to be coasting to re-election in a big blue state. despite those revelations in "double down." and he's making no secret that he's at least looking at a presidential run. peggy noonan, you spent some time with governor christie this week. >> yeah, he was beginning his big seven-day bus tour of new jersey to, you know, to end on election day. i found him to be an example of

the lost joy, the lost pleasure of politics, he's out there having fun, they love him, he's going to win by 20, 25, whatever, points, he's feeling triumphant, that's a rare thing to see in a republican these days. so, it was wonderful to witness. let me tell you something that i have been thinking about with regard to new jersey and virginia, new jersey is about to, we believe, it looks like, re-elect a red state figure who is pro-life and he's about to win by a lot of points as it appears from the poll. ken cuccinelli, down south in virginia, he's a pro-life guy who's expected according to the polls to go down. so, he's expected to go down in a mixed state and christie is going to win in a deep blue state. i'm trying to make my point here, wow, pro-life politics and social issues can be very interesting. >> first of all, i think chris

christie should really enjoy this moment, when you read "double down" and you see the kinds of stuff that has not come out about him yet, when you talk about people in new jersey, about property taxes going up and the bond rating going down, poverty going up, i think the myth of chris christie is going to pop like a lead balloon. i think this is his last great moment. when you want to run as a fiscally conservative and your taxes are going up and you have the worst bond rating in the state. >> let's separate those questions. i read parts of the book about chris christie, what are you specifically referring to? i saw the stuff about his vetting file. it doesn't seem to be disqualifying. >> listen, the stuff that i have seen, i haven't read the full book, but the stuff i have seen, you talk about the temperament, when you can put together a roll of tape, dvd full of this guy yelling and screaming at people. >> but that's his brand.

>> listen, if that's such a great brand why wasn't he the vice president -- >> oh, van. >> next wednesday morning, we'll be reflecting on virginia and new jersey. what i think they signify more than anything else, not only tell us 2014, virginia and new jersey never tell you about what the future is, if you look back at the elections. what they do say is the environment in the state or the geography matters. both of the environments have helped. >> and ideology matters. >> and competence matters. >> christie is a conservative on some issues. like abortion. but other issues that are important, immigration, the environment, he takes a more moderate stance. it's a story, in a purple state, a tea party candidate is going to be at a disadvantage. >> and hurricane sandy, his ability, what he did, obviously, we're now having the new york city marathon this year. which we didn't have last year. because of how he handled

hurricane sandy basically determined his election. >> christie said, i asked him about these issues, he said, you know what you guys all misunderstand about politics, it's not about ticking off boxes on this issue or that issue, he said that, at the end, it's a personal judgment about your leaders. politics is personal. we'll see. it was an interesting analysis about what a leader is. >> we'll have to do that. >> talk about virginia for a second, because, you know, if terry mcauliffe does wins, the republicans will be shut out of all the top offices in virginia. is this state completely transformed? >> it's astounding. we'll have the democrats if it goes the way we think controlling both senate seats the governor, the lieutenant governor and the attorney general, we haven't seen that since watergate. so, you know, this could be a moment in time. but what a wake-up call for the republicans. they couldn't win anything in virginia. >> and i think that it is a

telling thing about the tea party in that, you have all of this energy, this energy seems to be hurting the republicans in the long term, you'll have to do an autopsy on the autopsy. republicans have to do better with women. with minorities. cuccinelli points in the opposite direction. i think that, you know, again, you have a chris christie people are excited about but i think he's weaker than a lot of people thought. >> it's a telling sign -- virginia is a symbolic sign of the democracy of the country which hurts them. we have had eight or nine states that have moved solidly republican to lean democrat. you have eight one way and the one the other. dem graphy in this country. >> candidates matter. nominated far right candidates. >> lesson for the tea party? >> i tell you, i think something

big may be coming. many people may be cruising for a bruising here. big difference between the tea party now and '76 and reagan. '64 and '76, goldwater and reagan, both wanted to seize and control and win over the republican party. the tea party shows signs of not wanting to win it, but topple it over, do away with it. that's something new in our politics. >> what should we watch on tuesday night? >> the one contingency in virginia, mcauliffe is a heavy favorite. you have a libertarian candidate, his combined with cuccinelli, if you see a lot of last-minute defectors, i'm a republican i'm not going to vote. he might have an outside chance. but most of these races are kind of decided at this point. >> one thing that i'm looking at is new jersey, the gender gap. in the last poll christie had the same amount of support among

women and men. no gender gap whatsoever. christie is a republican and can win. >> i think that the fact that deblasio is going to win in the new york's mayor race, the theme of income inequality. this is the theme, if democrats can nationalize in 2014, the republicans get power and they abuse it, we get income inequality. we want to do something about it. it's going to be a big problem. >> thanks to everyone. get ready for nate's new website -- fivethirtyeight.com launching in the new year. coming up rob lowe and what it took to play jfk and charlie sheen's take on conspiracy theories. >> charlie took it the level that he believes the moon is hollow. >> that's next in our "sunday spotlight." that's next in our "sunday spotlight."

look at the lead you got. >> the northeast, we need to wait in the midwest and the west. it's going to be a long night. >> well, tell me in the morning who wins, mr. president. >> don't say that. >> a scene there from "killing kennedy." based on bill o'reilly's best-selling book. it stars rob lowe as jfk.

he told us it's a roll of a lifetime. one he has been preparing for years. >> i told him i was ready and they trusted me. >> he's the most recognized face and voice arguably in history. so, as an actor, you have to serve as that. if you don't have the look or voice, you don't have anything. >> i am today announcing my candidacy. >> i am today announcing my candidacy. for the presidency of the united states. so, you do that and then you just begin the real work making him a real human being. >> one of the most fascinating scenes to me is, during the bay of pigs crisis when he really reveals his insecurities. >> i told them i was ready and they trusted me. >> that's why you fall in love with this character. he's a man just like you and me, just happens to be john f. kennedy. we all have stresses around our jobs. his stresses just happened to have the entire world hanging in the balance.

>> especially in the middle of the cuban missile crisis. it's one of the tragedies of the kennedy presidency is that he was struck down at the moment he seemed to be -- >> finding his footing. >> exactly. >> both politically and personally. i think there's a lot that speaks to his relationship with jackie, being sort of on the rebound and them reconnecting with each other. which -- i always found really moving about. >> killing kennedy takes on a lasting debate. siding with the commission lee harvey oswald acted alone. are you convinced? >> i don't know. i have been back and forth. >> it is true that you and charlie sheen used to go back and forth about whether there's a conspiracy? >> not only did we argue about it, we actually had a couple of the leading authors come and speak to our little salon of

friends and, you know, charlie has since taken it to the level that he also believes that the moon is hollow. i'm not really sure what the significance of that would be. you know, i go, here's the list of believers and conspiracies. here's a list of believers. and i'm going with warner commission, kennedy family, instead of charlie sheen. >> what was the biggest thing you learned about john f. kennedy throughout all of this? >> you realize why he's held in such reverence when you watch his white house press conferences. >> i thought it sounded more like teddy than it did me. >> such style and such wit. >> such wit, he was so fast. he had the common touch and yet he traveled the world and had every privilege. i mean, he was the unique original that everybody from president clinton to barack obama or any of our leaders that we feel are great communicators, ronald reagan, all of them come

directly from jfk. >> "killing kennedy" premieres november 10th on the natgeo channel. and now some welcome news from afghanistan. this week the pentagon did not announce any killing of service members. that's all for us today. thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. check out "world news" with david muir tonight and i'll see you tomorrow on "good morning america."

>> in the news, scare at sfo. why police boarded a plane and took a passenger into custody. and how a half a dozen kids got lost at east bay park and had to be rescued. >> good morning. take a look at the golden gate bridge. we have cooler air coming into the bay area today. but for how long and how cool in stay with us. i'll have the an the next on ♪ at kaiser permanente we've reduced serious heart attacks by 62%, which makes days with grandpa jack 100% more possible.

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